Just in time for Halloween, Blaze has a pizza with ghost pepper meatballs
What happens when the Blaze Fast-Fire’d Pizza executive chef starts experimenting with hot peppers?
One scary meatball.
Blaze Pizza is serving these balls of fire on top of a limited-time item called Blazin’ Hot Chicken Pizza at all its locations.
Brad Kent, the chef and also co-founder of the Pasadena-based chain, said the idea came about when a colleague suggested he create something to tap into the Nashville hot chicken craze — which is kind of a challenge since Blaze doesn’t fry chicken.
“What if we did a Nashville hot chicken meatball? Because that would be how Blaze would approach it,” he said in a phone interview. “It would actually work on pizza much easier than trying to figure out how to bring a deep fryer into 350 restaurants around the country.”
But there was another challenge, getting the meatball spicy enough.
“Once you put things on a pizza, the sauce, the cheese and the dough tend to make whatever is spicy taste less spicy.”
He started with cayenne pepper and graduated to one of the spiciest chilis on earth, the ghost pepper.
When he took the idea to the company that makes meatballs for Blaze, he was told, “’We have to have a hazard plan just to handle it.’
“I said, ‘That sounds perfect then’.”
But even those meatballs weren’t hot enough for pizza, Kent said. So he added a slaw to the recipe made with kale and scorpion pepper. And he took it one step further and added a drizzle made with cayenne.
Those three together give you some serious heat.”
If you’re trying to impress fans of peppers, “when you call something hot, it’s got to be hot,” he said.
But he said that when people who aren’t crazy about peppers taste the Blazin’ Hot Chicken Pizza they adjust to the heat.
“There’s something about the way chili gets your endorphins going that makes you just want another slice.”
To further entice diners, Blaze Pizza will be giving away free Crunch bars to people who drop in after 4 p.m. on Halloween, which is Saturday, and say the word “Crunch,” according to a Facebook post.
Information: blazepizza.com